226.2 miles or 9.27 seconds Just keep running, Just keep running

"So let's not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don't give up." Galatians 6:9

Dean Karnazes author of Ultra Marathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner, as a long distance runner has ran 226.2 miles with only several stops of little more than a few minutes. His book, Ultra Marathon Man, describes some of his accomplishments such as running 200 miles in a little over 46 hours.

Jamaica's Asafa Powell holds the world record in the men's 100 meters at 9.77 seconds.

Very few people on the planet will ever run as long or as fast as Mr. Karnazes or Mr. Powell respectively but we all have the opportunity to do good. Doing good draws down strength and energy that you do not always have. Your Christian life may have you doing the same thing over and over again, like a man running more than two hundrend miles, or it may have you fulfilling short deadlines like a sprinter. Our faith can be refreshed by a promise, 'you will reap a harvest of blessing'. It is a conditional promise. "If you don't give up."

Some believers are uncomfortable with the idea of working for a 'harvest of blessing' but the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:24-25 encourages us with these words, "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.... They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever."

This 'harvest of blessing' has a this life application and a next life application, and it is about doing good. The hymn write Horatious Bonar said it with these words, "Go, labor on: spend, and be spent, Thy joy to do the Father’s will:
It is the way the Master went; Should not the servant tread it still?"

The blessing we recieve from the Lord are describe by the the Apostle Peter as "an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you."

So then my friend if you a tired or 'weary and feeling small', or if 'times are rough' or if 'your down and out and on the street' as described by Simon and Garfunkel, then remember that you are "surrounded by ... a great cloud of witnesses", and you can "throw off everything that hinders", then you can "run with perseverance the race marked out for you, and fix our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith." He, "for the joy set before him he endured the cross,...then he "sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. "Consider him who endured ... opposition, so that you do not "grow weary and lose heart". (Adapted from Hebrews 12 1-3)